Ewelina Hanska was Honoré de Balzac's correspondent, mistress and wife. It was for her that he made this famous daguerreotype portrait showing him in his shirt. Balzac's theory on photography is that each portrait captured in the darkroom takes on a spectrum: a thickness of appearance that constitutes our image, like the multiple skins of an onion.

As Nadar recalls in his memoirs, ‘So, according to Balzac, every body in nature is composed of a series of spectra, in layers superimposed ad infinitum, foliated in infinitesimal films, in every sense in which the optic perceives this body. (...) Each Daguerrian operation thus surprised, detached and retained by applying it one of the layers of the objected body. Hence for the said body, and with each renewed operation, the obvious loss of one of its spectra, that is to say of a part of its constitutive essence’.

The objects in the Mme Hanska poster series form a ‘Chinese portrait’ of the artist Aurélien Mole. They reflect his interest in specific objects that resonate with the present day. These objects are photographed against a neutral background, illuminated by computer or tablet screens.

Here, an opium den headrest in the shape of a cat. A hole in the animal's rump allows it to be filled with hot water to enhance the comfort of the person lying down, following the course of his smoky reveries. The cat has colonised our homes as much as the Internet, and is one of the most commonly used meme.

Here is a scale model of the Jamais contente, the first car to break the symbolic 100km/h barrier on 29 April 1899. On that day, you can imagine it backfiring, hurtling along the Achères plain in the Yvelines at incredible speed. Its shell-like shape made a clean break with horse-drawn carts, linking the wartime technological imagination with the early development of the motor car. In truth, this new speed record was achieved in virtual silence, the Jamais contente being an electric car. A technology quickly supplanted by the internal combustion engine.

Finally, a Harley Benton effects pedal for electric guitar. This is a delay pedal that allows the musician to create short echo-like loops of sound. The settings allow you to modulate the speed and volume of the repetition and control its attenuation over time. Using this effect forces the musician to play in mirror image. Knowing that the sound will immediately be reflected back to him, he has to create harmonies and dissonances whose stacking he has to anticipate. In the context of live music, delay introduces a brief memory of past sounds that disturbs or enriches the present moment of the performance.

All these objects have been found online and, as a result, have left traces that are fragments of a portrait of the artist as consumer. These fragments are compiled to form a horizon of commercial interests that enable certain brands to target more precisely the person to whom they are trying to sell their product. These pieces of code are known as ‘cookies’, and are used to track the browsing habits of individuals. In homage to Balzac, they could just as easily have been called ‘spectres’.

If you pay close attention, you can make out silhouettes underneath the poster, fragmentary counter-forms of the logos of the digital companies that lovingly collect our spectres. Just as Ewelina Hanska kept a daguerreotype of Honoré de Balzac.